


Sounds About Right

by zaphodsgirl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Frenemies Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson, Gen, Misunderstandings, POV Sam Wilson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 20:19:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19258474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaphodsgirl/pseuds/zaphodsgirl
Summary: Sam thinks Bucky is trying to irritate him on purpose, but it turns out he couldn't be more wrong.





	Sounds About Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [A_Diamond](https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/gifts).



> Once upon a time, Diamond sent me a message saying "I'VE FOUND BUCKY BARNES" and with it this post:
> 
> And it gave me a great idea for a fic that I _tried_ to convince her to write for me, but she is crafty and used a puppy gif and somehow turned it around and now look, I've written my first MCU fic and it is all her fault. I should thank her for helping me get outside of my comfort zone, but I'm still pouting that she's a better manipulator than I am.
> 
> Thank you to [superhoney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superhoney) for her awesome beta assistance, once again. Some day I will not need her to hold my hand and ask me what tense I actually want the fic to be in so she knows which one to follow -- but today is apparently not that day. Tomorrow probably won't be either. This is why I send her bribes.
> 
> Please note that while researching for this fic I stumbled across the TAGTeach method and felt like it was the best way to make this seem like a legitimate practice, but I do not pretend to actually know anything about it, and it's application has been wildly improvised here.

The first time Sam is conscious of the noise is in the gym at the new Avengers complex, where most of them are now living at Pepper's insistence. She'd already had the foundation poured a month after Tony's funeral, and Sam didn't know whether to be in awe of her strength or feel sorry for her determination to hide her own pain.

"Tony built the original to serve a purpose," she'd said to him over Skype. "Just because he's gone doesn't mean the purpose is. You have new responsibilities now, Sam, and everything you're going to need to prepare for them will be there." 

It isn’t until later, when he is comparing notes with Bruce and Rhodey, that he realizes she had pretty much given the same speech to all of them; but by then she'd accomplished her goal of making them function as both a team and a family, and they didn't feel any ire towards her. How could they? 

The new facility has a rotating cast of characters who come and go frequently, making use of the gym and the conference room and the dining hall, but not all of them are actually living on site. Clint stays with his family on a full time basis, but comes in person once a month to commiserate with the others, though he considers himself retired. Peter had moved there after he graduated high school, but college keeps him busy during the week, and he often uses his weekends to go and visit Aunt May. Others will drift in and out when visiting from their home countries (or their home ships, though he doesn’t much care for visits from the so-called Guardians of the Galaxy, saying it in a sarcastic sing-song even in his head), although he doesn’t think you can call what Strange does 'drifting' as much as 'popping in unannounced in the way most guaranteed to startle the shit out of everybody'. 

Then there are the permanent residents like himself, people who call the complex home because they really have no other: Rhodey, Wanda, Bruce, and Bucky. Begrudging roommates at first, then eventually getting to be on better terms, then becoming more familial. It’s like the strangest cast of _Big Brother_ ever, with a regular panel of guest stars who pop in to stay for awhile. 

Bucky is the only one he still feels a bit weird around. He doesn’t actively hate the guy anymore, not after all they've been through together, but he doesn’t exactly like him either. It had been the same with Scott at first, but now the two of them have an almost brotherly relationship; the kind where you pick on each other all the time, gradually making your mother more and more irritated with your antics until she -- or in this case, Wanda -- glares at you from the other side of the room in a way that lovingly implies murder. 

Bucky still remains an enigma, though, and Sam is content to leave him that way. They respect one another, take care of business together, get the job done. Sam doesn’t need to braid his hair during a sleepover to bond with him, and they don’t have to cry on each other's shoulders as a coping mechanism. Pepper employs a couple of onsite therapists for that anyway, who all of them visit regularly since she strong-armed them into going. 

It's after one of his own therapy sessions, when he's running on the treadmill in the crowded gym, that he hears a click in between songs on his iPod. He straddles the sides of the still-moving belt and takes one of the earbuds out to stare at it, as if he can discern whether or not it made the noise by studying it. He's shaking his head at himself, about to put it back in, when he hears the click again. It's fainter this time, and he glances around the room trying to place it. Clint is working the free weights in the far corner, Thor is bench pressing a ridiculous amount of weight with Rocket enthusiastically spotting him, and Peter Quill is two benches down doing his level best to try and do what looks like half the amount as he glares daggers at Thor's head, while Drax makes droll comments all the while. 

Scott comes in as someone else leaves, and the door to the gym swings shut with a click behind him. Sam glances at it, wondering at first if that's what made the noise he heard, but no, he's sure it wasn't. He nods to Scott, then puts his earbud back in and resumes his pace. 

After that, though, he finds himself hearing the noise more and more. He's not entirely sure when he realized how frequent it was, only that it begins to creep in at the edges of his awareness until he becomes hyper-sensitive to it. It’s like the cowbell in that Blue Oyster Cult song -- once he heard it, he couldn't unhear it, although its appearance isn’t as predictable or rhythmic as that steady cowbell keeping time.

It’s maddening, the way he’ll be doing something innocuous and suddenly get distracted by this tiny noise - _click -_ and not be able to pinpoint where it came from. It happens in the dining hall, in the middle of laughing at something Rhodey is saying. _Click_. It echoes off the walls of the room where a group of them are sparring together as Sam learns how to move with the vibranium shield, cursing at how fast and tricky Wanda is. _Click._ He hears it in the large den where they all inevitably gather to watch something mindless on television (there is an embarrassing amount of _Property Brothers_ being viewed in the New Avengers complex), the sharp sound of it startling him out of a doze in his favorite armchair, where he'd begun to nod off as Peter and Bruce argued about something technical on _Forged and Fire_ that he couldn't follow. 

He looks past the heated discussion on the large sofa centered across from the TV -- wondering how Rhodey manages to both ignore the two of them and still be completely engrossed in the show -- and scans the rest of the room trying to pinpoint the sound. Wanda has her legs pulled up beneath her on the love seat, elbows resting on her knees as she leans forward with intense interest, Carol beside her just as focused, and honestly how can all of these people shut out the sound of Peter's voice? 

Sam notices Bucky then, sitting in the other armchair, a soft smile on his face. He still finds it unsettling on the man, more comfortable with the quiet menace he usually projects. He's got his eyes on the TV like the others but his head is tipped back against the chair, his lower body slid forward somewhat so he can still see the screen, legs splayed before him with his hands dangling off the chair arms. 

He's holding something loosely in one hand, and as Sam peers to get a closer look at it Bucky's thumb moves, and _click._

"Son of a bitch," Sam says under his breath, suddenly agitated to learn the source of the noise that's been like a fly in his ear for weeks now. He quickly stands and leaves the room, taking note of the fact that no one's eyes follow his departure except Bucky's. He clenches his hands into tight fists, holding his breath as he leaves -- but Bucky doesn't take the opportunity to irritate him further, no doubt satisfied to have driven him out of the room.

It must be some kind of subtle, Winter Stupid Soldier psychological warfare game that Bucky's playing at, and it pisses Sam off. He thought they'd at least gotten to a place where they were cool with each other, but clearly Bucky is going out of his way to needle Sam for some reason. He'd seen the way Bucky's eyes followed him out of the room, and he has no doubt that if he'd looked directly at his face he would have seen smug satisfaction on it. 

The only mature thing to do in this situation is to confront him, find out what his deal is.

So Sam avoids Bucky entirely for the next six days.

*******

"What are you doing?"

Sam jumps at least a foot in the air and screams "Jesus!" before putting one hand on his heart and the other on his knee as he bends over, trying to calm himself. "What the hell? You're twice the size of a regular human, how do you manage silent running like that?"

He grabs the bottle he dropped on the floor before he stands up, grateful he took a water instead of soda. He leans against the door of the fridge as he slowly twists off the cap, eyes on his task, and takes a long swallow before he finally meets Bruce's steady gaze. 

"What? I can't get something to drink before bed?"

"You know that's not what I'm asking about."

Sam sighs, then hoists himself up to sit on the counter so he doesn't have to strain his neck having this conversation. It's not like Bruce can sit on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island to even out the height difference. Bruce leans his palms on it instead, looking at Sam with a calm that is contradictory to his appearance, an oxymoron in living form.

"So what are you asking about?" He's pretty sure he knows, but playing dumb is his default setting. 

"You haven't eaten a meal with the rest of us all week, conveniently using the gym or the training deck during the times you know everyone else eating. You don't spend any time in the den watching TV, and you only sneak into the kitchen for food and drink when you're sure we aren't around. One day might not have mattered, but it's obvious to everyone that you're avoiding all of us."

"Not _all_ of you," Sam mutters, and Bruce raises his rather substantial eyebrows.

"So you're only actively avoiding one of us," he surmises, and Sam hangs his head. "Let me guess: Bucky? I thought you guys were cool now."

"I thought so, too, man. It's just that he's been playing this stupid mind game thing on me and it took forever for me to figure it out. I don't understand it either. Like you said, I thought we were cool."

"Mind game?"

"He's been using this clicker thing, just pressing it all the time to drive me nuts. I finally realized what it was in the den the other night. Bastard's been doing it whenever I'm in the room."

"Uh-huh. And your immediate assessment is that this is directed at you, somehow."

"Well he doesn't have a history of actively trying to aggravate anyone else in this building," Sam says hotly, but now he's starting to question himself. 

"You should probably talk to your therapist about your latent hostility towards Bucky." Bruce stands up straight and heads for the doorway. "And after you get your head out of your ass, you should research TAGteach methodology."

"I'm not hostile towards...what now?"

"TAGteach," Bruce says over his shoulder. "Google it."

*******

Normally Sam doesn't mind going to therapy, despite what most people would assume about him. He supposes it's how confession feels to a penitent Catholic, a chance to expunge yourself of your perceived sins, start fresh. 

This is the first time he actually feels nervous going in, with Bruce's words from the night before tumbling over one another in his mind like clothes in a dryer, tangling together in a confused mass. He sits on the couch bouncing his knee, struggling with how to start while Dr. Jones gives him an assessing look. 

"I don't think I've ever seen you so agitated. Not even when we first began. What got to you?"

Sam means to say Bruce, but that's not the name that falls from his lips. "Bucky." He shakes his head, annoyed with himself, but Dr. Jones just waits patiently. "Last night Bruce said I have 'latent hostility' towards him, but I don't think that's true." He breaks eye contact, turning his attention to the window, privacy glass allowing light into the room but obscuring the view. 

"If you don't think it's true, why is what he said bothering you so much?" Sam breathes out loudly through his nose, clenching his jaw. "Is it because you know you're harboring _something_ towards Mr. Barnes? Not hostility, but something else?"

"Maybe."

"When you first met Mr. Barnes, how did he make you feel?" 

"Like punching him repeatedly in the face." Sam looks back to her with a shrug. "But he was the enemy then. He's not now."

"He's another Avenger, now, yes. His personal affiliation has changed. That doesn't necessarily mean that _your_ relationship to him has changed.Do you still feel like you want to..." Dr. Jones just gestures, and Sam huffs nervously.

"Not until the other night when it became clear that he's been actively following me around the complex trying to agitate me on purpose." 

"How so?"

"In the most childish way possible! He waits until I'm in the same room with him, and he has something that makes this stupid clicking noise. Been doing it around me for _wee_ ks, just waiting until I'm not paying attention and then making this fucking sound."

The doc leans on her desk, fingers steepled together before her. "Tell me what makes you think that what Mr. Barnes is doing has anything to do with you."

"Well, I'm always in the room when it happens."

"Yes, but...how would you know if it happens when you're _not_ in the room?" Sam opens his mouth to answer, then realizes he doesn't have one. He sinks back against the sofa. 

"Shit." 

"I'm afraid Mr. Banner may have been right about some things, and the reason you're so aggravated about what he said is that you know he's right. You're viewing whatever this activity is through the lens of whatever it is that you still harbor towards Mr. Barnes, without considering that it may be something completely innocuous." 

Sam looks at her for a few minutes, and she returns his gaze with an unwavering calm until he breaks.

"It's possible that I kind of...resent him." 

"For?" 

"I don't, um." He wants to say he doesn't know, but he doesn't want to lie. Everything he resents about Bucky has everything to do with Steve Rogers. That a man like Bucky could do so many terrible things, yet still have Steve go to bat for him with a loyalty undimmed by the passage of seventy years has always needled at Sam. Why should an assassin deserve that kind of devotion from anyone? "The way Cap always stuck up for him, despite everything. It was hard for me to take."

"Don't you think Captain Rogers would have done the same for you, if you'd ever been compromised against your will the way Mr. Barnes had been?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he would have. It's just...maybe he shouldn't. Trust people that don't deserve it."

Dr. Jones examines him for a few minutes, and Sam begins to wilt under the weight of her stare. 

"Did you harbor this kind of resentment towards Ms. Romanov?"

"What? No, why would I?"

"Well, she and Captain Rogers were always very close. He would have done anything for her as well, just as he would for any of his teammates. Yet she had a history just as, if not even more, tainted as Mr. Barnes."

"That was different."

"Sure it was." 

Sam wants to glare at her, but he's afraid of what he'll see on her face, so he hedges instead. "Um, Dr. Banner mentioned a kind of therapy he thought I should try. Sounded like some kind of kids game, tag something." He sneaks a glance at Dr. Jones, but he can tell she's not even remotely fooled.

"Are you referring to TAGteach?" 

"Yeah, that's it! TAGteach. What is that, exactly?"

"It's a type of therapy typically used for children on the spectrum, to help bring order and calm to what is chaotic for them. It has been applied to some other groups as well, in certain variations, everything from sports to business."

"How does it work?"

"It's about positive reinforcement. You assign something as a TAGpoint - let's say touching the tip of your nose as an example - and every time you complete an action successfully you tag it. Say you were trying to quit saying a specific word."

"What, like 'fuck'?"

"Yes, exactly," she says without even flinching. "Rather than get angry every time you let that slip out, you instead touch your nose every time you successfully substitute something else, like 'frak'."

"I didn't know you were a BSG fan, doc."

"Focus, please." Sam schools his features into his serious face. "The point is to show you how many times you succeeded during the day, and only focus on that. Maybe you slipped up twice, but you counted ten times you touched your nose, and you can be proud of that. The idea is that you focus on reward rather than punishment, even if the punishment is just you chastising yourself."

"I don't know. Sounds weird."

"Well, you don't have a chaotic mind, but you were military. Surely you can see the benefit of order, of having a task to focus on, however small, and completing it successfully." She shuffles some papers on her desk, pointedly not looking at him. "Maybe the next task you need to focus on is communication."

Sam actually feels a chill from that shade. 

*******

There's something about Sunday dinner, here in the compound, that Sam has always liked. Even though none of them work nine-to-five jobs, this is still usually a day of rest for everybody. Those who have been away tend to find their way back throughout the day, and by the evening there's a pretty full house.

Sunday is also spaghetti day, and even the Avengers cannot resist the siren song of the carbohydrate, and so he chooses that day to finally make an appearance in the crowded dining hall. He can hear Thor before he sees him, greeting Peter with such enthusiasm that you would think they hadn't seen one another for years instead of two weeks. It makes him wonder idly if time moves differently when you're in space, and not for the first time he feels a twinge thinking of Tony and Nebula, drifting in the empty dark, death both slow and certain as the days marched on and on. He shakes himself, peering around the door frame like he's doing reconnaissance, seeing Rocket and Groot sitting at the same table where Thor has one massive arm around Peter's shoulders as the kid grins happily. The rest of the Guardians seem to be spread throughout the dining room, mingling with everyone else, including Clint's entire family. 

There's only one person sitting at a table by himself, in the far corner by the windows, without even a plate in front of him yet. Sam takes a deep breath as he walks into the room, taking a plate from the stack and letting Chef fill it with pasta, and as he takes his third meatball he hears it just underneath the sound of Peter laughing.

_Click._

His shoulders tense involuntarily, and he clenches the plate while breathing through his nose, chastising himself for the Pavlovian response. Once he relaxes again, he turns and marches deliberately to Bucky's table, sitting next to him so that they're both facing into the room.

"Hey, Buck," he says with a casual tone so forced that he tries to cover it up by inhaling an entire meatball, forcing himself not to flinch as it burns the roof of his mouth.

"Sam," Bucky replies, his tone wary, as though he expects to get elbowed in the throat at any minute. "Haven't seen you around all week."

It's both a statement as well as an accusation. He should have known that Bucky would be suspicious of any change in his behavior, both his unexplained absence and his manufactured friendliness. He stabs at the strands of spaghetti on his plate, taking more time than is necessary to wrap a tidy bundle around his fork, metal tines scraping against the bowl of the spoon he's twirling it against. He blows on it, then chews with a deliberate slowness while his dinner companion's eyes bore into the side of his face. 

He had a whole plan before he came in here, a series of talking points he'd agonized over all day, ways to work up to the part of the conversation he needed to get to without seeming obvious. 

"What's with the clicky thing, man?" What the hell. Obvious will save them both time.

"Oh," Bucky says softly, pulling his hands off the table and into his lap, like a kid caught with a cookie before dinner. "It's a therapy tool."

Sam nods. "You know, for weeks I thought you were following me around the complex, clicking it just to get on my nerves." He keeps his eyes on his plate, focused on twirling more pasta into a tight spiral.

"Why?" There’s no actual curiosity in the question, just a firm resignation that no less was expected. 

Sam shrugs. "Probably because deep down I still think you're an asshole." He meant for it to sound funny, but instead it just sounds...true. He puts his fork down with a sigh. "This is the part where I say 'it's not you, it's me' without meaning it, except that I really do mean it.”

"I see. I have to say, I'm a little surprised that you're breaking up with me, considering I didn't know we were dating."

Sam laughs in spite of himself and goes back to his spaghetti. "I deserve that." He manages to eat half of his plate before Bucky says anything else, whispering, even though he knows at least half the assembled company can probably hear him just fine. Sam wonders if it's just superhero good manners, to deliberately not listen if you hear one of your teammates start whispering. 

"It's something my therapist suggested to try and get me out of the headspace I'm usually in. I know who I am now, and more importantly who I want to be. It's just that it's hard to stop dwelling on who I _used_ to be." He brings his hands back up onto the table, turning something over in his fingers, a small square of blue and white plastic with a piece of metal inside of it. He holds it up, showing it to Sam, then places it flat on the table in front of him. "I have a tendency to only focus on the bad events, and it keeps me from seeing the good things I have now. My therapist wanted to give me a way to track those, show me that they outweigh the bad. So whenever I see something that makes me smile, or I feel good, or I have a nice thought, I just..." He presses the metal with the pad of one finger, and it clicks loudly against the wood surface. Such a small device, an object with no connotations except what Sam assigned to suit himself. 

"Shit," Sam says. "It seems that deep down I'm the one that's an asshole."

"I don't know about that. I think it's mostly a surface level kind of thing."

Sam turns to Bucky with an incredulous look to find the man grinning at him. "Shut up," he says, playfully elbowing him. "Tell me what kind of things make you clickity clackity. Maybe, if you're nice to me, I can help you rack some up."

"They're just little things, it's not important."

"Hey." Sam's tone is serious, and he waits until Bucky meets his eyes. "They're important to you. That makes them special. You don't have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable, but I really do want to know."

Bucky looks away, and Sam goes back to eating, not wanting to push. He's done as much as he's capable of doing to try and communicate, it's not like he's any kind of touchy-feely wordsmith, if that's not good enough than...

"Everybody seems to roll their eyes at Peter a lot," Bucky says quietly, and it makes Sam look over to that table in the dining hall. "He actually reminds me a lot of Steve, back when we were kids. What I can remember of then, anyway." He's slowly twirling the clicker on the table in front of them, his gaze alternating between it and the kid dwarfed under Thor's arm. "Steve wasn't as smart as that kid, and he sure wasn't as healthy, but he was just as small as Parker looks next to Thor, and he had that same heaviness on his shoulders all the time. The burden of not being able to just be a kid, you know?" 

"Yeah," Sam says thoughtfully, studying the youngest Avenger. "Huh. I never thought about that." Suddenly laughter breaks out at the table in response to something Rocket's been saying, Thor smacking the table in glee with his fist, and Peter clutching his ribs as peals of glee leave him.

 _Click_.

"That's when he's most like the Steve I remember, though. When he laughs like that, despite everything that's weighing on him."

Sam glances at the soft, relaxed smile on Bucky's face, then looks back towards the group across the room. _Still waters really do run deep_ , he thinks, wondering what Bucky really sees when he looks at everyone else in their assembled company. What he sees beneath the surface that they all show. What he sees in Sam, himself, beneath his wisecracks and his cocky swagger and the way he can't be bothered to look beyond what's easy for him to deal with. 

"I'm sorry, man," he says lowly, and Bucky gives him a questioning look.

"For what?"

"A lot of things," is all he says, because he doesn't know how he could possibly list them all. He's sorry for the terrible history in Bucky's head, forced upon him against his will, damaging him irrevocably and robbing him of so much. Sorry that the only friend that's ever mattered to him will die sooner rather than later, despite the increased longevity bestowed upon him by the remaining super soldier serum in his veins. "Tell me another one?"

*******

It's later than normal when Sam finally leaves the dining hall, stuffed with too much spaghetti, his thoughts as heavy as his stomach. He lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling, taking the time to weigh perception against reality. How he'd always trusted Steve, taken his side in everything: against Project Insight, against the Hydra uprising, hell, even against Iron Man himself. Trusted that Steve knew best which direction to navigate in the vast gray area that always exists between right and wrong. Trusted him with his life. 

But he'd never trusted his judgment when it came to Bucky Barnes. 

He pulls out his phone, knowing he should check the time before he dials, but not wanting to give himself an out. Mercifully, it only rings twice. 

"Hello?"

"I was afraid it was past your bedtime, old man."

There's a soft, indulgent laugh on the other end of the phone, and something in Sam clenches. 

_That's when he's most like the Steve I remember, when he laughs._

"It's good to hear your voice, Sam. What's going on?"

"This will sound weird, man, but...I wanted you to tell me about Bucky. The real Bucky. The one only you seem to know. What he was like when you were kids, stuff like that."

Sam’s not sure how long the silence on the other end lasts, but he's mentally preparing his answer for when Steve inevitably asks why. _Because I want to be his friend. Because he misses you. Because he deserves to have more than one person really see him, since he sees everyone else._

"He never left me behind, even when other kids wouldn't have anything to do with me," Steve finally says, and Sam almost blurts out his answer to the question Steve didn't bother to ask. "He was always dragging me along to things I loudly protested that I didn't want to do."

"I bet you really did want to do them, though," Sam replies, recovering easily.

"Yeah," Steve says, and Sam can hear the grin in his voice. "I could never lie to him, even when I was lying to myself."

Sam realizes now that being Captain America is about more than bearing a shield or wearing a uniform. It’s about taking the time to truly care about the people around you; even when it’s hard, even when they test your patience, even when you hate them sometimes -- because you look at them for who they truly are, see the internal workings of their emotional clock. As he stays up late listening to Steve tell old stories of his childhood in Brooklyn, he starts to understand how Captain America really came to be. It had less to do with scientists and super soldier serum, and everything to do with the heart of a single boy who didn’t give a shit what anybody had to say about a weird, sick kid. Being best friends with Bucky Barnes made Steve Rogers the man he was: determined and foolhardy, but steadfast and unafraid. 

He doesn’t know if he and Bucky will ever have the same kind of closeness, but there’s one thing he knows for sure as he and Steve hang up the phone hours later: there’s no Captain America without Bucky Barnes, and he’s going to do everything he can to be the kind of friend that man deserves, so he can be the kind of hero that the world needs..


End file.
